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Rules
This page contains any and all rules for the game that relate to game mechanics, character creation and particulars for each venue. Unless specified here, please assume that we are using the rules as written in the book. If you have any questions, feel free to ask a Staff member. General These are the rules that effect the game as a whole, not simply one venue. Character Creation Much of the rules of character creation have been standardized to prevent imbalance between venues. These rules are for every venue, including Mortals. Equal For All We use the 'Equal For All' house rule. What this means is that everyone, mortal and otherwise, starts with the same attribute/ability set. In addition, we will be using the 'point pool' method, meaning that rather than the 7/5/3 attribute split, characters have 15 attribute points to split however they see fit and 27 ability points to spend. Freebie Spending All characters start with a total of 15 freebies. Please keep track of how you spend your freebie points and attach it to the bottom of the sheet so the Storytellers can tell at a glance where the points were allocated. Additional freebies may be gained for well written backgrounds at ST discretion, to a maximum of 10. Selling Down One can sell down attributes, abilities, backgrounds and so forth for an equal amount of freebies as it would cost to buy each dot. These points can be spent as you see fit, however, cannot be used to breach any limits inherent in the game (ie. exceeding starting arete limit of 3). Craft/Performance special rules Whenever one takes a Craft or Performance skill they must take a specialization in that skill. After that, if they desire to learn another Craft or Performance skill, they may do so at half cost as a secondary skill, with the caveat that any such secondary Crafts or Performances must remain equal to or less than their primary. Categories of Crafts include Pottery, Sewing, Home Repair, Carpentry, Carburetors, Body (for Vicissitude), Gun smithing, Sword smithing and so forth. Performance includes Singing, Dancing, Acting, Drunken Karaoke, Stringed instruments, Woodwinds, Percussion or Guitar. Character Backgrounds Why should I do a character history? *Additional freebies may be gained for well written backgrounds at ST discretion, to a maximum of 10. *Although we don’t require everyone to submit a character history, it can have many important benefits. First off, it may help you with fleshing out your character, giving you additional ideas to work with. It gives a character more depth, allowing deeper interactions with other PCs on the chat. It also gives the Storytellers some insight to your character, helping us to evaluate how you will fit in with the types of stories that we run, verifying that the sheet lines up with the concept or story hooks that may be tailored to your PC. For rare characters we do require a background. What should I put in my background? *Your background shouldn’t be an epic. There are no requirements for length or font, etc. This is a game, not an English class (though it does show negatively if you cannot spell or form coherent sentences!) and should not be thought of as such. Your history should be long enough to at least cover key points of your character: **Who were you before becoming what you are(if applicable)? **How and when did you change (if applicable)? **Some information about what you’ve done since becoming **How you came to be in Ft. Lauderdale As you can see, we aren’t asking for a whole in depth history. Simply enough to get an idea of the character will suffice. That said, those that are willing to put more work into the background (ie. giving us perhaps an idea of what sort of family you had, an idea of your schooling, the first coterie/pack/motley that you were with, ambitions in life/undeath)will be looked upon more favorably than others, keeping in mind that longer is not necessarily better. Oh, and paragraphing is your friend. ---- Combat By and large, Combat will be run as it is published in the book, with the following modifications to it. *To avoid confusion and to streamline combat, we will skip rolling initiative and the declaration phase of combat, though the ST may elect to use another order or to roll initiative. *Combat actions will start at the top of the list of players and go down. Declare what you are going to do (descriptively, preferably, then roll your action. Defender declares their response (dodge, block, etc) and rolls action if applicable. Then damage and soak are rolled as applicable. For help on understanding combat, please see the Combat Primer. Character Sheets Experience Spending/Tracking Canon and Canonocity There will be a number of subtle changes to certain concepts in the game. For one, by and large, almost every awakened being is aware, to some degree, of the existance of other awakened beings (vampires, werewolves, mages, fae, etc). Certain particulars that may appear in the books may be handwaved by the Storyteller for the sake of the story. If you have a question about an event in the published materials that ties to your character background, please ask an ST before assuming. Not every ST has read every book of every venue, let alone formed a single, cohesive image of the overall events and metaplot of the World Of Darkness, and, in many ways, it is our feeling that such tends to limit the story and creativity of the Storytellers and Players. Please, do not argue with Storytellers if they change aspects of White Wolf's published material to better fit the stories we are trying to tell. Changeling HOUSE RULES # Kiths - Allowable Kiths include anything from the core Changeling revised rule book as well as Selkies, Clurichans and Ghuille Dhu. Also, Sidhe have been changed to be allowed past lives since the time of their return (1969) rather than the normal single life. # Glamour and Banality - Generally, it is frowned upon to ravange glamour from other PC's. Please at least discuss such things with the other player OOC before hand. Ravaging is generally frowned upon by the court, currently Seelie of house Gwydion. The Banality rules have also been relaxed significantly to facilitate inter-venue play. In effect, being near those of high Banality will not necessarily harm fae, though you are encouraged to roleplay disgust/repulsion. In addition, there are treasures available to temporarily lower a beings effective banality for a time, such as what are used at Dark Symphonies. # The Mysts - The biggest change to this is that the Mysts do not effect Awakened beings (other supernaturals). This does not mean the fae must reveal what they are, nor does it mean a fae cannot perform a mind wipe with their own arts. # World of Darkness - Players are discouraged from playing 'silly' fae characters. There should be more (much more) to a character than simply slapstick comedy or beating people with fish. Please make sure your character has...well...character. This doesn't mean they must be gothy, brooding loners or such, simply that this is the World of Darkness. Changeling can be as dark as any other venue. These rules are intended to make the game we are building more enjoyable for all players involved. It is hoped that players will read these rules and try to maintain the spirit of them, rather than attempted to finagle between the words to abuse the rules. If you have a problem or concern with a rule (or lack thereof), it is asked that you email the Storyteller, rather than hounding them in the chat. In addition, the rules section of this may be added to at any time. We will attempt to make certain people are aware of them by announcing major changes in the chat, however, it is up to the players to read and understand the rules and make certain they are familiar with the current rules. Demon Hunter CHARACTER GENERATION HOUSE RULES: Since Hunter: The Reckoning is a very character-driven game, focusing on the human side of the (Old) World of Darkness, I do things a little bit differently. Follow the basic rules for character generation above, with the following exceptions. 1. Only plain, ordinary humans may become Hunters. No kinfolk, kinain, ghouls (or former ghouls), etc. There are specific reasons for this that are part of the game's backstory that I'm not getting into right now. More may be revealed later. This also means that your PC has had no direct contact or experiences with the supernatural until starting the game. This doesn't mean that, looking back, you might not come to realize that the bum you gave money to down the street is a werewolf, or that the bartender at a club is a vampire...and you may have interacted with these NPCs like ordinary average people...but you had no idea that they were "special" or got any clue of this, or saw any displays of their powers, before starting play. This is written in stone so please don't ask for any exceptions, they will not be granted for Hunters. 2. Assign Attribute and Ability points normally (limit 3 dots in any Ability at this stage) but don't take Awareness until after your Imbuing. The following Abilities from hunter creedbooks are also allowed if you come up with proper reasons for your character to have them: Body Control (talk to me before taking it), Construction, Disguise, Endurance, Fast Draw, Locale, Might, Subculture, Tactics, Traps. Bear in mind that desired characters for the game are plain, ordinary, everyday people, so soccer moms and store clerks are FAR more likely to meet ST approval over action heroes and ex-marines. If you want more than 2 dots in combat-based Abilities (such as Brawl, Firearms and Melee), you need to give me a very good reason to allow it, and don't have more than one such Ability. Set starting Willpower at 3. 3. If you wish, you may spend up to your 5 starting Background points, but you may wish to hold some in reserve. At this stage, you may only buy the following Backgrounds out of the Hunter: The Reckoning core rules: Allies, Contacts, Fame, Influence, Resources. The following Backgrounds may be taken from hunter creedbooks (ask me for details): Animal Companions, Berserk (get my approval for this one!), Database, Everyman, Grace Under Pressure, Iron Willed, Roots, Soulmate, Steel nerves, and Stronghold. Most other Backgrounds from oWoD games (Vampire, Werewolf, etc.) may be taken ONLY if they are ones that any ordinary, non-supernatural character can take. Contact the Hunter ST (quistar@aol.com) to confirm that these are allowed in play. Please note that I will be VERY leery of allowing the Arsenal background at all, and more leery of allowing anything past the first dot of it, if that, at any stage of character creation! 4. Do NOT spend Freebie points at this stage. Those will be spent after your Imbuing Scene (along with any Backgrounds you did not spend beforehand). 5. Arrange with the Hunter ST to set up an Imbuing Scene, when your character will have their first encounter with the Supernatural and have their eyes opened to what is REALLY out there. Bear in mind, your characters know NOTHING about how the various critters of the World of Darkness operate and function, so work very, VERY hard to try to forget everything you already know OOC about the games when you sit down to play Hunter. Please!!! 6. IGNORE Creed, Virtues, Conviction and Edges until after the Imbuing. The Hunter ST will go over all this with you once the Imbuing Scene is complete and will help you fill in this information. 7. A well-detailed background for your character will be worth more than all the dots in existence and make the ST very, very happy. Give this a lot of attention! Please note that, unlike the other venues, this one will start off with the Hunter PCs "isolated" from PCs in other games in our chronicle by setting them up in and around Miami...yes, in the heart of "monster" territory. This does not mean you are guaranteed to fight every supernatural creature you encounter...that will be partly up to your characters. Once we see how the hunters operate (i.e. The Hunter group should not automatically seek to attack or kill every creature they encounter!) we can see about having them meet the other characters and crossing over, if that happens. That will be a Hunter ST decision. If it would kill the flavor of the game, this may never happen. We'll see. One reason for the isolation from supernatural PCs is that, unlike characters in the other (old) World of Darkness games, Hunters are thrown into the deep end without any swimming lessons...they have no idea what has happened to them or why, and have no clue how all the critters of the game systems function. All they have to go on is commonly known folklore and reruns of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and the like. Thus, it behooves you, the player, to do your best to actively NOT think about the other game systems while playing Hunter (at least until you start learning things in-character by playing the adventures). This is a game where ignorance makes it more fun...so try extra-hard NOT to metagame what you already know as a player. In fact, the Hunter ST reserves the right to change details of what you might THINK is normal for creatures (within reason) to keep the confusion and wonder of the game alive. So if something seems off-kilter, just go with it...have fun and don't worry if the rules make sense or fit canon, or if the Hunter ST actually knows said rules or not. :-) Any other questions or concerns, contact your Hunter ST, Andrew, at Quistar@aol.com. Please see the Hunter Rules page for the Whispers in the Dark rules for Hunter: The Reckoning. Mage Most abilities and assumptions for Mage are fine, however, there are a few points that must be made for any new ST. First of all, while Sphere Mages are built and functions as per Mage: The Ascension Revised (4600), Sorcerers have a few differences. Sorcerers are drawn from Sorcerer Revised, and function under the Equal for All rules under the base rules for Whispers in the Dark. They also receive 6 Numinae to allocate among their Paths. Otherwise they are kept as per the book. Background Details Chantry: This background functions normally, except when joining an established NPC Chantry, such as the Seventh Circle Chantry. When joining such a chantry, you gain 2 dots worth of its backgrounds for each dot of Chantry you possess. Note that while extremely beneficial, there are also dangers and problems with being associated with a given Chantry, and you may be called upon to defend it. Node: Any node produces an amount of Tass or Quintessence equal to its rating per week. Restrictions The following backgrounds can be denied a player if the Storyteller feels it is too powerful, unbalancing, not fitting to the character, or simply because they do not feel it would fit well into the venue: Arcane, Destiny, Dream, Library or Wonder. These will be handled as they come, but do not be surprised if adjustments are asked for. Any background not drawn from the Core mage book will require explanation and may be denied, though will likely be granted if fitting. Chantry may not be taken during character creation if you are not a member of the Seventh Circle Chantry in Fort Lauderdale, though this may change in play. Node may only be taken in rare cases, with Storyteller approval. Expect that your request will most likely be denied if you request a Node. All merits and flaws are rare and special and will be handled on a case by case basis. If it is felt that they are unfit for the character, story, or the venue as a whole they will be denied, though with a good enough reason you can take any you see fit, so long as they are from Mage. However, Fae Blood, Shapechanger Kin, Ghoul and other such merits must also be approved by the Storyteller in charge of the other venue. Expanding on this, any material from outside of the Mage books must be specifically requested, and are likely to be denied. Other than these details, for the most part, welcome to Mage and have at it! Mortal Orpheus Vampire Please see the Vampire Rules page for the Whispers in the Dark rules for Vampire: the Masquerade. Werewolf